It’s Never Too Early To Hate Your Body

That certainly seems to be the not-so-subtle message, when a quick scan of the ether brings headlines of Abercrombie’s latest foray into the offensive — the padded push-up bikini top for girls… like, 7 year-old girls — and this little item: A San Francisco mom admits to regularly injecting her eight year old daughter with [...]

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This Just In! Facebook Makes you Sad!

In case you occasionally channel your inner adolescent, you oughta stay away from Facebook.    It’s not because — as in the days when the Mean Girls were the scourge of seventh grade — you will be judged.  It’s because you will  judge them — and find yourself falling short by comparison. Compare.  Contrast.  Fail. You [...]

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Affirmatively Screwed: The Trick Question on College Applications May Be Sex

To pick up where Shannon’s post from Tuesday left off:   Here’s more evidence that the news of men’s untimely demise has been greatly exaggerated.  To wit: If you happen to be a high school senior, live with one, or ever were one, you know what this coming week is all about:  Waiting by the [...]

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Man Up? Man Down! News of the End of Men Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

Oh, how I tire of the End of Men headlines. Two recent books have reignited the conversation, though, as their titles indicate, they come at it from decidedly different perspectives. In “Manning Up,” Kay Hymowitz argues that men taking longer to grow up and get married (which are, you know, boogeyman-bad phenomena) is a problem [...]

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No Room For Nuance in the Mommy Wars

So, earlier this week writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner (we’ve written about her before), had a piece on the Wall Street Journal’s blog that ignited what can only be described as a Category 5 shitstorm. The post is entitled “Time for a War on ‘Mommy’”–and, while I am neither a mommy nor a mother, I happen to [...]

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Did You Hear the One About the Guilty Women?

A new study suggests that when boundaries blur between work and home, women feel guilty.  Men?  Nope.  Even when after-hours demands are the same. Women?  Guilt? Well, duh, right? But here’s what’s interesting. The findings held true whether the work demands actually interfered with home life or not.  And here’s what’s more interesting: The study [...]

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To Be Or Not To Be …

… a geek? Sister, it’s complicated.  And the choice may have more than a little bit to do with sexism, according to a new study reported on by Slate. We’ve heard any number of reasons why women avoid math and science, but as Shankar Vedantam reports in Slate, one thing is not in dispute –  [...]

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It’s International Women’s Day: Do You Know Where Your 25 Cents Are?

It’s International Women’s Day, and if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. By way of celebration, I’m compelled to take stock. The good, the bad, the ugly. Ugly’s first: According to a new report issued by the White House entitled “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being,” women of all levels [...]

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Analysis Paralysis, anyone? Anyone?

Thanks for the offer.  But let’s just have some chocolate cake and call it a day. More about this cake business later, but first, there’s this:  Newsweek is the latest to hop aboard the streetcar named Can’t Decide — our own trek for the past two years — with its current cover story on the [...]

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Facebook Face-Off: Doth Thou Protest Too Much?

Clicking through my Facebook friends, one could be forgiven for assuming I do a lot of socializing at preschools. One would be wrong, of course: the truth is that countless of my pals have replaced their profile pics with snaps of their wee ones; their status updates with diaper-status updates. Continuing along, one might also [...]

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